Coastal Schools Seeking Plans For Room To Grow

DELRAY BEACH -- Walk through the campus of Pine Grove Elementary School, and you see plenty of evidence that the place needs to expand.

Art and music teachers move from class to class with materials on a cart.

The crowded cafeteria needs an additional 1,000 square feet.

A narrow hallway designed as a fire exit serves as the guidance counselor`s office.

The district has plans to spend $1.7 million to improve Pine Grove, but the plans do not significantly address crowding.

This is the case not only at Pine Grove but other coastal schools that lack adequate space for much-needed expansion.

The student enrollment at Pine Grove is about 1,100. The permanent capacity, without 27 portables, is 595.

The plans at Pine Grove include four kindergarten restrooms, music and art suites, additions to the administration and student services building, physical education office, storage, and a media center.

Some additions that could directly affect class sizes include two exceptional student education classrooms, two skills development labs and four primary classrooms.

School Board member Jody Gleason said the plans are good, but not good enough. She said the plans should increase the school`s capacity.

Gleason raised the dilemma at a recent board meeting when the board was to approve the school improvement plan. She recommended that the plan be put on hold until staff members could come up with a better one.

Most board members agreed the staff should redo original plans. But the same plan returns to board members on Wednesday.

Gleason said she has talked to district staff members and suggested the school`s cafeteria be expanded. Also, she wants the district to look into purchasing adjacent property for expansion.

She said there are other projects at other coastal schools that need to be reviewed. The reason: the growth of population in the coastal areas and a construction plan that fails to meet the needs of coastal schools.

For instance, at Barton Elementary School in Lake Worth, the music teacher uses a book room as an office.

``I do not have anybody teaching under a stairwell, I just have a tight campus and a playground getting smaller,`` Barton principal Nola McIlvin said.

Shades of an errant 1986 construction bond plan continue to plague the Palm Beach County School district.

``I think back then, the philosophy was to go left, which was west, but now things have changed since then,`` Gleason said.

The 1986 plan was formed when the district had fewer students, more money via the multimillion-dollar bond plan and little insight on how to use it.

Meanwhile, at Pine Grove, four office staffers weave their way through a maze of desks in a small front-office area.

``It negatively impacts the workplace because teachers see other schools with nice, spacious facilities,`` said Judy Kurzawski, principal at Pine Grove.

``Ten years I have been here and 10 years these conditions have existed,`` Kurzawski said.

District officials say building new schools in the coastal areas is a problem because most of the land is developed.

Most coastal schools are built on land too small to expand, said Russell Smith, coordinator of architect services.

Smith said the population of older residents is decreasing in the coastal areas, and that younger families are moving in with children, which contributes to the problem.